In federal jail for the Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995, Terry Nichols asked for a court-appointed attorney to file a lawsuit complaining about the food in prison.

The lawsuit claims that the Supermax prison in Colorado is causing him to sin, apparently he feels he doesn’t get enough nutritious meals.

Nichols was given a life sentence for conspiring with Timothy McVeigh to blow up a federal building and involuntary manslaughter for the 168 people that were killed in the bombing.  Timothy McVeigh was convicted of murder and the world watched as he was executed.

Not only should he never have been allowed a lawyer to waste tax payers money and file such a frivolous lawsuit, but he should be happy he wasn’t executed and live the rest of his life quietly in prison.

What was the U.S. Attorney General thinking when this was allowed to go through?  It should have been denied with a big fat red stamp!

American terrorist

So I just finished reading The Politics of Unreason: Right-Wing Extremism in America, 1790-1977 by Seymour Martin Lipset and Earl Raab.   I’d been meaning to read something of Lipset’s for a while and, given the Department of Homeland Security’s recent declassifying of a document warning of the potential growth in right-wing extremism in the United States, as well as the recent murders of an abortion doctor in Kansas and a security guard at the Washington D.C. Holocaust museum, this seemed like a pretty good start.

I thought I’d look at the Department of Homeland Security’s report in light of my recent readings and see if there is anything that Lipset/Raab might be able to tell us about these groups.    First, let’s look at the connection between (illegal) immigration to the United States and the growth of right-wing extremism in the same.

The DHS report contends that, as in the mid-1990s, potential right-wing extremism may arise out due to “frustration over a perceived lack of government action on illegal immigration”.   This is certainly in keeping with Lipset/Raab’s analysis, which finds right-wing movements in America as historically characterized by a nativist aspect which seeks to sustain or restore a sense of social privilege which appears threatened by newly arrived immigrant communities.   This nativist sentiment usually grows in step with increased friction between native-born American communities and newly arrived immigrant groups, both of which are usually at the lower end of the economic spectrum and often compete over the same low-paying jobs.   Lipset/Raab analysis specifically focuses on the anti-Catholic activities of the Know-Nothing Party, the American Protective Association, and the Ku Klux Klan, all of which at various times blamed Catholic immigrant communities for driving wages down, growing crime rates, and shifting political and economic power from rural Protestant communities to urban Catholic ones – charges which (save for the last one) have been levelled at today’s population of primarily Hispanic illegal immigrants living in the United States.

In recent months, the issue of illegal immigration has largely fallen off the media’s radar as attention is focused instead on the economy, North Korea, and Iran.   Yet the ire expressed by many on the right about Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the supreme court certainly reminds us of a strong nativist streak among many in the far right, which balks at anything that appears to chip away at white male privilege.   While the number of illegal immigrants entering the United States has declined in the last three years, I imagine that this will have little impact on the prejudice against illegal immigrants which the DHS cites (given that such prejudice has more to do with popular perceptions rather than careful analysis).

However, it is important to remember that while negative perceptions of illegal immigrants among a more right-leaning segment of the American public are unfortunate, they are not merely the product of uninformed and unthinking bigotry.   For while the belief that illegal immigrants ’steal’ American jobs or drive down wages is inaccurate, it does reflect widely shared frustration among America’s low and lower-middle classes concerning the fact that wages in real dollars have stagnated or even declined over the past two decades.

The linkage between declining economic fortunes and right-wing radicalization is not surprising.   As Lipset/Raab demonstrate, it is historically the low and lower-middle class, who have often lacked the capital, skills, or education needed to effect upward social mobility, that have been most open to the lure of extreme nativist rhetoric.   New immigrant groups – legal or otherwise – simply (and unfortuntely) form a corporeal target upon which right-wing anger might direct itself.   If more effort is not made to bring the salaries of low-paid Americans in line with real prices and inflation, nativist anti-immigrant sentiment and the potential for radicalization among America’s labouring poor will likely remain unchecked.

This brings us to another prediction made in the DHS report concerning the potential for economic hardship to encourage right-wing extremism.   Again, having read Lipset/Raab, this is not surprising – and I would imagine not surprising for most of us who remember high school history lessons about the Great Depression and the rise of European fascism.   It was during the depression of 1893 that the American Protective Association grew to its greatest level of nearly 2.5 million members and inspired mass panic in communities across the US when it released what it claimed was a secret papal document instructing American Catholics to exterminate heretics.   Gun sales soared as Americans prepared for what many believed to be an imminent insurgency of Catholic assassins – only to discover later that the document had been a forgery.

The connection between economic hardship on the one hand and right-wing demagoguery and conspiratorial fear mongering is further evidenced by Lipset/Raab’s analysis of Father Charles E. Coughlin and his National Union for Social Justice.   This Canadian-born Catholic priest’s radio program became a ‘beacon’ of  populist rhetoric, anti-Semitism, and fascist ideology during the Great Depression – and won him nearly 9 million regular listeners.   Railing against the communist subversives and ‘Jewish bankers’ who he claimed were behind Roosevelt’s New Deal, Coughlin called for the dismantlement of America’s democratic system and the creation of a corporatist state along the lines of Mussolini’s Italy.

This kind of hysteria is certainly familiar in today’s current economic climate.  FOX News pundits have made much noise about the rise of a socialist dictatorship under Obama, while the rumour that the Federal Emergency Management Agency has created concentration camps across the US to detain millions of US citizens in the event of a collapse of law and order continues to spread through the Internet.   Such ideas would be risible were they not coming at a time when gun sales in the US have nearly doubled (a frightening indicator of general unease among the American public and one specifically cited in the DHS report).

The labelling of Obama as a proto-dictator by his critics on the far right is a sharp reminder of the continued currency of conspiratorial views among many on the edges of American political life.   It would be foolish to dismiss such views as that of a lunatic fringe, though, given that such views about the pervasive influence of a malevolent elite in the American government have been a marker of political discourse in America since the emergence of anti-Illuminati/anti-Masonic instigators in the late 18th century.   While the DHS report is correct in pointing out that a troubled economic climate and the election of the first African-American president have increased the potential for right-wing extremism, it is important to remember that such extremism – and the conspiratorial anti-elitism it espouses – is, unfortunately, as much a historical feature of American society as the continued development of a more inclusive political culture.

That being said, Lipset/Raab’s analysis does provide a modicum of hope for those of us disturbed by the DHS report.   First, the appeal of extreme right-wing groups throughout American history, though substantial, has never led to electoral success at the polls.   Third party alternatives created by these groups have fared poorly in American elections (as, unfortunately, have all third party alternatives, regardless of political stripe) and the personal appeal of men such as Father Coughlin does not translate into support for the political candidates such men endorse.   While these groups often do manage to influence policies within either the Republican or Democratic parties, they do so at the expense of their more extreme views, which they must partially moderate in order to work within either party, and at the risk of being abandoned out of political expediency by their Republican or Democratic backers (such was the case with the APA, the Ku Klux Klan, and Joseph McCarthy) when their politically toxic views become an electoral liability.   So despite the continued popularity of men like Glen Beck or Rush Limbaugh, it is doubtful how much direct influence they command over their sizable combined audience.

I will end this by noting that the DHS report, in paralleling today’s ‘fertile recruiting environment for right-wing extremists’ and the growth of right-wing extremist activities during the early years of the Clinton presidency, cites those factors that led to the decline in right-wing activities as,

“increased government scrutiny as a result of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and disrupted plots, improvements in the economy, and the continued U.S. standing as the preeminent world power.”

While improvements in US (and global) economic fortunes are certainly to be hoped for, I am slightly disturbed that the diminution of extremist strength was seen as conditional upon the growth of a security industry and the predominance of American global hegemony.   Neither ’solution’ is particularly palatable in its own right, and I doubt whether either of them are feasible solutions to the problem of extremist activity in the long term.   In fact, it was the brutal exercise of force by the American government in Waco, Texas that inspired Timothy McVeigh to plan and execute his savage, criminal bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995.   (Disturbingly, the DHS report cites the potential for returning US servicemen to become, like McVeigh, involved in violent extremist activities – something suggested as much by a January 2008 article in the New York Times.)   And if right-wing extremism is as much a fixture of American political life as Lipset/Raab’s work would seem to suggest, perhaps the most we can hope for is an amelioration of the violent excesses of these groups, rather than the disappearance of them from the national scene.

- Photo courtesy of TheSmokingGun.com

Yes, the worst terrorist attack in our history was perpetrated by a foreign conspiracy. But the second worst, the Oklahoma City bombing, was perpetrated by an all-American lunatic. Politicians and media organizations wind up such people at their, and our, peril.

-Paul Krugman, New York Times op-ed

Read the full article here.

Paul Krugman, The New York Times, June 12, 2009

Back in April, there was a huge fuss over an internal report by the Department of Homeland Security warning that current conditions resemble those in the early 1990s — a time marked by an upsurge of right-wing extremism that culminated in the Oklahoma City bombing.

Conservatives were outraged. The chairman of the Republican National Committee denounced the report as an attempt to “segment out conservatives in this country who have a different philosophy or view from this administration” and label them as terrorists.

But with the murder of Dr. George Tiller by an anti-abortion fanatic, closely followed by a shooting by a white supremacist at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the analysis looks prescient.

There is, however, one important thing that the D.H.S. report didn’t say: Today, as in the early years of the Clinton administration but to an even greater extent, right-wing extremism is being systematically fed by the conservative media and political establishment.

Now, for the most part, the likes of Fox News and the R.N.C. haven’t directly incited violence, despite Bill O’Reilly’s declarations that “some” called Dr. Tiller “Tiller the Baby Killer,” that he had “blood on his hands,” and that he was a “guy operating a death mill.” But they have gone out of their way to provide a platform for conspiracy theories and apocalyptic rhetoric, just as they did the last time a Democrat held the White House.

And at this point, whatever dividing line there was between mainstream conservatism and the black-helicopter crowd seems to have been virtually erased.

Exhibit A for the mainstreaming of right-wing extremism is Fox News’s new star, Glenn Beck. Here we have a network where, like it or not, millions of Americans get their news — and it gives daily airtime to a commentator who, among other things, warned viewers that the Federal Emergency Management Agency might be building concentration camps as part of the Obama administration’s “totalitarian” agenda (although he eventually conceded that nothing of the kind was happening).

But let’s not neglect the print news media. In the Bush years, The Washington Times became an important media player because it was widely regarded as the Bush administration’s house organ. Earlier this week, the newspaper saw fit to run an opinion piece declaring that President Obama “not only identifies with Muslims, but actually may still be one himself,” and that in any case he has “aligned himself” with the radical Muslim Brotherhood.

Read More Here

At the height of the Clinton administration, fringe anti-government groups like the Michigan militia (the second link returned by Google if you search the word “Militia”) were in their heyday. They were posting lookouts for black United Nations’ helicopters, rallying around the 2nd Amendment, speaking out against Clinton’s attempts to establish a “One World Government” or a “New World Order” and conducting paramilitary training in the back woods all around the country. (For a more thorough examination of the phenomenon, I’d recommend Morris Dees’ “Gathering Storm: America’s Militia Threat“.) Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, shared these paranoid fears and, ultimately, took them to their logical extreme. Paul Krugman in the New York Times draws a parallel between the rhetoric and violence of the extreme right wing ideologues of the 1990’s militia culture and the current rhetoric of the right wing media. The shootings of George Tiller in Kansas and of Stephen T. Johns at the United States Holocaust Museum, Krugman argues, may augur a return to hate-filled, pre-Oklahoma City style rantings and more domestic terrorism, this time spurred on in part by the conservative media.

Today, as in the early years of the Clinton administration but to an even greater extent, right-wing extremism is being systematically fed by the conservative media and political establishment.
Now, for the most part, the likes of Fox News and the R.N.C. haven’t directly incited violence, despite Bill O’Reilly’s declarations that “some” called Dr. Tiller “Tiller the Baby Killer,” that he had “blood on his hands,” and that he was a “guy operating a death mill.” But they have gone out of their way to provide a platform for conspiracy theories and apocalyptic rhetoric, just as they did the last time a Democrat held the White House.
And at this point, whatever dividing line there was between mainstream conservatism and the black-helicopter crowd seems to have been virtually erased.
Exhibit A for the mainstreaming of right-wing extremism is Fox News’s new star, Glenn Beck. Here we have a network where, like it or not, millions of Americans get their news — and it gives daily airtime to a commentator who, among other things, warned viewers that the Federal Emergency Management Agency might be building concentration camps as part of the Obama administration’s “totalitarian” agenda (although he eventually conceded that nothing of the kind was happening).

Today, I reached a major blogging milestone; I received my first death threat. The following comment was posted to my feedback page a couple of hours ago:

tIM
TIMMCVEIGH2@AOL.COM
IP: 205.188.116.11
I have a friend who works for Microsoft and can identify the locations of pigs who are too cowardly to identify themselves.

Wow, is this scum bag gonna be surprised when the yellow Ryder truck pulls up aside his (her?) building.!

Watch the news.

Apparently he’s planning to blow up my house but doesn’t even know if I’m a guy or a girl. You need to know your target better, moron! And he didn’t even say why he’s gonna kill me. Usually when you intend on intimidating someone into compliance with your will, you actually make sure to express what you actually want from them.

Sounds like tIM’s just some impotent 13 year year Star Wars fan roleplaying as a right-wing internet tough guy. His bad grammar belies mere stupidity as opposed to the stark raving lunacy of someone who represents a credible threat, but maybe, just maybe, one day when I have a larger readership and have published more controversial opinions, I’ll get menacing threats. Until then, while this one’s really not that cool as far as death threats go, I’m kinda proud of it.

3 police officers shot to death in Pittsburgh

by The Associated Press

Saturday April 04, 2009, 12:41 PM

PITTSBURGH — A man opened fire on officers during a domestic disturbance call Saturday morning, killing three of them, a police official said. Friends said he feared the Obama administration was poised to ban guns.

Three officers were killed, said a police official at the scene who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. Police spokeswoman Diane Richard would only say that at least five officers were wounded, but wouldn’t give any other details.

The man who fired at the officers was arrested after a several-hour standoff. One witness reported hearing hundreds of shots.

The shootings occurred just two weeks after four police officers March 21 in Oakland, Calif., in the deadliest day for U.S. law enforcement since Sept. 11, 2001.

Police did not immediately release the gunman’s identity, but his friends at the scene described him as a young man who thought the Obama administration would ban guns.

One friend, Edward Perkovic, said the gunman feared “the Obama gun ban that’s on the way” and “didn’t like our rights being infringed upon.” Another longtime friend, Aaron Vire, said he feared that President Obama was going to take away his rights, though he said he “wasn’t violently against Obama.”

Perkovic, a 22-year-old who said he was the gunman’s best friend, said he got a call at work from him in which he said, “Eddie, I am going to die today. … Tell your family I love them and I love you.” Perkovic said: “I heard gunshots and he hung up. … He sounded like he was in pain, like he got shot.”

Vire, 23, said the gunman once had an Internet talk show but that it wasn’t successful. Vire said his friend had an AK-47 rifle and several powerful handguns, including a .357 Magnum.

The officers were called to the home in the Stanton Heights neighborhood at about 7 a.m., Richard said.

Keith Olbermann vs. Rep. Michele Bachmann & “Revolution” Comments

Is Glenn Beck Encouraging Violence Towards Obama?

Beck: I was wrong — We’re headed toward fascism, not socialism.

The Oklahoma City bombing

was a domestic terrorist attack on April 19, 1995 aimed at the U.S. government in which the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, an office complex in downtown Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, was bombed. The attack claimed 168 lives and left over 800 people injured. Until the September 11, 2001 attacks, it was the deadliest act of terrorism on U.S. soil.

Shortly after the explosion, Oklahoma State Trooper Charlie Hanger stopped 26-year-old Timothy McVeigh for driving without a license plate and arrested him for that offense and for unlawfully carrying a weapon.^[1] Within days, McVeigh and Terry Nichols were both arrested for their roles in the bombing. Investigators determined that they were sympathizers of a militia movement and that their motive was to retaliate against the government’s handling of the Waco and Ruby Ridge incidents (the bombing occurred on the anniversary of the Waco incident). McVeigh was executed by lethal injection on June 11, 2001 while Nichols was sentenced to life in prison. A third conspirator, Michael Fortier, who testified against McVeigh and Nichols, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for failing to warn the U.S. government. As with other large scale terrorist attacks, conspiracy theories dispute the official claims and point to additional perpetrators involved.

The attacks led to widespread rescue efforts from local, state, federal, and worldwide agencies, as well as considerable donations from across the country. As a result of the destruction of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, the U.S. government passed legislation designed to increase protection around federal buildings and to thwart future terrorist attacks. Under these measures, law enforcement has since foiled over sixty domestic terrorism plots.^[2] On April 19, 2000, the Oklahoma City National Memorial was dedicated on the site of the Murrah Federal Building to commemorate the victims of the bombing and annual remembrance services are held at the time of the explosion.

Jim D. Adkisson Charged In Tennessee Church Shooting That Killed 2

SundayJuly 27, 2008

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — An out-of-work truck driver accused of opening fire at a Unitarian church, killing two people, left behind a note suggesting that he targeted the congregation out of hatred for its liberal policies, including its acceptance of gays, authorities said Monday.

A four-page letter found in Jim D. Adkisson’s small SUV indicated he intentionally targeted the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church because, the police chief said, “he hated the liberal movement” and was upset with “liberals in general as well as gays.”

European Institute of Protestant Studies

Pastor Tony Alamo’s powerful, soul-winning Gospel messages

Bob Jones Reposts Mormon, Catholic ‘Cult’ Reference

Adkisson, a 58-year-old truck driver on the verge of losing his food stamps, had 76 rounds with him when he entered the church and pulled a shotgun from a guitar case during a children’s performance of the musical “Annie.”

Adkisson’s ex-wife once belonged to the church but hadn’t attended in years, said Ted Jones, the congregation’s president. Police investigators described Adkisson as a “stranger” to the congregation, and police spokesman Darrell DeBusk declined to comment on whether investigators think the ex-wife’s link was a factor in the attack.

Adkisson remained jailed  on $1 million bond after being charged with one count of murder. More charges are expected. Four victims remained hospitalized, including two in critical condition.

The attack Sunday morning lasted only minutes. But the anger behind it may have been building for months, if not years.

“It appears that what brought him to this horrible event was his lack of being able to obtain a job, his frustration over that, and his stated hatred for the liberal movement,” Police Chief Sterling Owen said.

Adkisson was a loner who hates “blacks, gays and anyone different from him,” longtime acquaintance Carol Smallwood of Alice, Texas, told the Knoxville News Sentinel.

Unitarian Universalists Respond to Knoxville Shooting Disaster

Rick Perry Stands Up for Freedom?

PERRY:  The federal government has become oppressive.  I believe it’s become oppressive in its size, its intrusion into the lives of its citizens, and its interference with the affairs of our state.  Millions of Texans just like yourselves that are tired of Washington, DC, trying to come down here and tell us how to run Texas.  (applause)  We think it’s time to draw the line in the sand and tell Washington that no longer are we going to accept their oppressive hand in the state of Texas.  There is a point in time where you stand up and say, “Enough is enough,” and I think Americans and Texans especially have reached that point.

Obama Report on “Right-Wing Radicals” Timed for Tea Parties

RUSH: I had a report, I got this at 2:30 yesterday afternoon.  I just didn’t have a chance to work it in yesterday.  It’s this Department of Homeland Security report, it’s nine pages, I’ve got the PDF here, and, by the way, this speech of Obama’s and the DHS report yesterday are timed for one reason and that’s the tea parties tomorrow.  This speech, the primary purpose of this speech is to take any glow off the tea parties.  The media is going to report on this speech later this afternoon and tell you about how great the economy is doing, how on top of it Obama is, how it’s going to be a little while before it rebounds but it’s coming back, and in having used that as the setup, they’ll then go to videotape of the tea parties where they’ll try to mock what’s going on with these people, just agitators with no real reason behind what they’re doing.  So this speech is designed to totally blunt the tea parties, which are grassroots affairs that will happen all over America tomorrow.  The DHS report, this comes from the Department of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano.  Now, when you read this whole thing, and it doesn’t take long to read it, it’s only nine pages, you can go to various places and read summaries of it as well.  For example, there is no proof here, no proof offered, no evidence offered that anything they project is true.
Let me give you one.  “The Department of Homeland Security assesses that right-wing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to exploit their skills and knowledge derived from military training and combat.  These skills and knowledge have the potential to boost the capabilities of right-wing extremists including lone wolves or small terrorist cells to carry out violence.  The willingness of a small percentage of military personnel to join right-wing extremist groups during the 1990s because they were disgruntled, disillusioned or suffering from the psychological effects of war is being replicated today.” They even quote Timothy McVeigh in this report.  This is the Democrat Party Department of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano put this together.  There is not one instance they can cite as evidence where any of these right-wing groups have done anything.  I’ll tell you what this is on the par of.  Remember in Missouri where the state police put out a pamphlet warning local police departments in Missouri that if anybody had an NRA bumper sticker on their bumper or a pro-life bumper sticker, that they were potential members of the right-wing militia.We had a call from Michelle yesterday in Pensacola, Florida, and she’s agreed to let us call her back sometime during the program today.  She’s upset because Obama is trying to unify us all, trying to bring us all together, and why am I opposed to this?  Well, here’s a clear example.  Ed Morrissey at Hot Air today writing about this suggested that Janet Napolitano needs to resign and that Obama needs to withdraw this report.  I read things like that and I understand where Ed’s coming from, but I don’t believe for a minute Obama had nothing to do with it.  Obama, he provides the vision, he says so; he puts the members of his cabinet there.  The idea that Barack Obama is not a partisan, that he’s a unifier, how can anybody today still go for that?  The only way they can is to remember what he said during the campaign, but ignore what he’s doing as president.  ‘Cause this thing, this Department of Homeland Security report is nothing more than a partisan hit job filled with lies and innuendo that portrays any conservatism as right-wing extremism.  I’ll read you a couple of excerpts of this just so that you get the idea.

“Rightwing extremists are harnessing this historical election as a recruitment tool. Many rightwing extremists are antagonistic toward the new presidential administration and its perceived stance on a range of issues, including immigration and citizenship, the expansion of social programs to minorities, and restrictions on firearms ownership and use. Rightwing extremists are increasingly galvanized by these concerns and leverage them as drivers for recruitment. From the 2008 election timeframe to the present, rightwing extremists have capitalized on related racial and political prejudices in expanded propaganda campaigns, thereby reaching out to a wider audience of potential sympathizers.”  What you have here is Barack Obama, forget Napolitano, it’s his administration, he provides the vision, he puts people in these positions that he wants to do his bidding.  This is Barack Obama, and this is an effort to stifle what anybody would consider to be normal political dissent.  He is characterizing those of you who oppose an expanding government, huge socialistic tendencies, legalization of illegals for the purpose of making them Democrats, we are now right-wing extremists and we are arming up, and this report is to warn other law enforcement agencies of the dangers posed by right-wing extremists.

American National Socialists

National Socialist Movement

On This Date In History: In 1938,  Swiss chemist Albert Hoffman was fooling around with synthetically made lysergic compounds as he researched their effects. On this date in 1943, he somehow accidentally ingested lysergic acid diethylamide. He noticed strange sensations and hallucinations after he went home. He had “discovered” LSD. In the 1960’s, intellectuals like Timothy Leary publicly touted the drug as “mind expanding.” Trouble was, often the drug resulted in very very unpleasant and dangerous effects that resulted in all sorts of undesirable mischief and even suicides and such. It was made illegal in 1965. All in all, the mistake in 1943 was probably one the world could have done without.  Here is a history as described by Dr. Hoffman.

On this date in 1947, a mistake at the port in Texas City, Texas resulted in disaster(see slide show and local history). The details of this are sketchy but basically, a ship loaded with 2300 tons of ammonium nitrate. Now, ammonium nitrate was used in explosives during WWII.

What To Do with a 150 foot, 30 ton barge 100 feet Inland?

If you recall, the terrorist bombing in Oklahoma City brought down a building with a few hundred pounds of the stuff. 2300 tons? Well, a fire broke out and the whole ship exploded. Some 581 were killed. Other ships in the harbor were lifted out of the water. At that time, chemical plants were connected with pipelines. They all exploded. The harbor caught fire. The ships anchor was found two miles away. The blast caused the Richter scales to suggest a small earthquake. A 500 home community was flattened. A ship was sent across the harbor and grounded. The crew scrambled away not knowing that there was fire. That ship exploded the next day. The fires burned for a week. Texas City no longer handles ammonium nitrate.

Another Famous Birthday Boy

A third mistake on this date in 1962? I should think not! Robert and Langston Symon became the proud parents of Robert Bruce Symon, Jr. The young lad had trouble getting his lungs to expand and there were fears he would die. But, after heartfelt prayer from the struggling youngster’s grandmother, the lungs got filled and they’ve been bellowing ever since. While he went on to marry Snow White, he has become like his favorite of the 7 dwarfs, Dopey. And his colleagues couldn’t agree more.  Oh yes…perhaps of equal significance…Pope Benedict XVI was born on this date in 1927…the same year as Robert B. Symon, Sr.

BTW…I bet the fine citizens of Louisville don’t know that April 16, 2002 was designated as Bob Symon Day and the aforementioned received a key to the city. That’s what I call a fine use of municipal resources!

Weather Bottom Line: We’re finally going to get out of the muck on Thursday and temperatures will respond in kind with highs in the low to mid 60’s.  Plenty of sunshine on Friday and low 70’s.  Saturday is Thunder Over Louisville and right now I see no indication of much data to support a notion of rain.  The GFS socks us in with clouds about 3am on Sunday.  The ETA puts a 15,000 foot cloud deck on about 8 pm but neither advertises rain until Sunday and Monday.  There may be some thunderstorms then but there is nothing that really jumps out at me from the vertical profiles prog that would suggest anything overly threatening.  I suspect that the rain chances we see late on Saturday or even Saturday afternoon showing up on various sources is more from a conventional wisdeom looksee based on looking at maps or for some perhaps a CYA.  But again, I see nothing from the vertical profile progs that lead me to believe it won’t be anything but a fine day for an airshow and a nice night for fireworks.

alphainventions

http://alphainventions.com/

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.”

- Timothy McVeigh quoting from “Invictus” by William Ernest Henley
    April 9 was a Sunday in 1865, and in the town of Appomattox, Virginia, the sun was shining down on the end of a war. Confederate forces, led by Gen. Robert E. Lee, had finally been brought to bay by Gen. Ulysses Grant after four grueling, blood-sodden years. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox was the conclusion of the largest and deadliest armed insurrection in American history.

    April 9 was a Thursday in 2009, and there are some lo these 144 years later who would very much like to see another armed insurrection erupt within these United States. The casus belli for today’s would-be revolutionaries is not states’ rights, slavery or economic independence, but is instead a toxic mix of fundamentalist Christianity, ultra-conservative orthodoxy and, more than anything else, guns.

    The existence of armed and angry insurrectionists in America is nothing new. As Robert Kennedy once observed, “One-fifth of the people are against everything all the time.” The militia movement, in one form or another, has been a part of our history literally since the founding of the nation itself, and memories of Waco, Ruby Ridge and the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City remain acutely fresh in mind even years later.

    Lately, the news has been flooded with reports of citizens arming themselves to the teeth, egged on by right-wing media personalities prophesying doom, the rise of socialism, and that a Marxist dictator now sits in the Oval Office. This frenzy has been spilling from talk radio and television out into the streets for weeks now, and has recently metastasized into acts of outrageous violence. It smells like a new beginning of something this nation has not been forced to endure for nearly a decade.

    Last Monday, a man named Richard Poplawski ambushed and murdered three Pittsburgh police officers and tried to kill nine others. Poplawski’s motivations, according to friends and family, centered around his belief in the existence of a vast government conspiracy to destroy American freedoms while establishing a left-wing dictatorship under President Obama. Poplawski came to believe all this after listening to and reading the paranoid rantings of right-wing luminaries like Alex Jones, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.

    Last July, a man named Jim Adkisson walked into a Universalist church in Knoxville and began blazing away with a 12-gauge shotgun, killing two people and wounding several others. He had 70 shotgun shells with him, and fully intended to massacre as many people in the church as possible before police killed him, but he was tackled and disarmed by members of the congregation before he could complete his task.

    Eric Boehlert, writing for Media Matters on April 7, said, “When investigators went to Adkisson’s home in search of a motive, as well as evidence for the pending trial, they found copies of Savage’s ‘Liberalism Is a Mental Disorder,’ ‘Let Freedom Ring’ by Sean Hannity, and ‘The O’Reilly Factor,’ by Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly. They also came across what was supposed to have been Adkisson’s suicide note: a handwritten, four-page manifesto explaining his murderous actions. The one-word answer for his deed? Hate. The three-word answer? He hated liberals.”

    ”The only way we can rid ourselves of this evil,” wrote Adkisson, “is kill them in the streets. Kill them where they gather. I’d like to encourage other like minded people to do what I’ve done. If life aint worth living anymore don’t just Kill yourself. Do something for your Country before you go. Go Kill Liberals!”

    Describing the Pittsburgh incident, Boehlert wrote, “In the wake of the bloodbath, we learned that Poplawski was something of a conspiracy nut who embraced dark, radical rhetoric about America. He was convinced the government wanted to take away his guns, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported. Specifically, Poplawski, as one friend described it, feared ‘the Obama gun ban that’s on the way’ and ‘didn’t like our rights being infringed upon.’ (FYI, there is no Obama gun ban in the works.) The same friend said the shooter feared America was ‘going to see the end of our times.’”

    ”Hysterical warnings of government gun grabs and a socialist takeover of the US are no longer the sole proprietary interest of fringe players like Jones,” wrote Max Blumenthal on Wednesday. “In the Obama era, Jones’s conspiracy theories have graduated to primetime on Fox News. And radicals like Poplawski are tuning in. Indeed, according to the Anti-Defamation League, the alleged killer posted a YouTube clip to (neo-Nazi web site) Stormfront of top-rated Fox News host Glenn Beck contemplating the existence of FEMA-managed concentration camps. (’He backed out,’ Poplawski wrote cryptically beside the video.) Three weeks later, Poplawski posted another YouTube clip to Stormfront, this time of a video blogger advocating ‘Tea Parties,’ or grassroots conservative protests organized by Beck and Fox News contributor Newt Gingrich against President Barack Obama’s bailout plan.”

    There have been more stories like this in recent months, and if history is any guide, there will be more to come. The timing of all this is deeply troubling, and the media players involved are all too familiar. There is something sinister at work here, something malevolent, something sly.

    Consider the curious historical synchronicity of all this: after the inauguration of a new Democratic president, there has been a sudden upsurge of right-wing polemicists agitating right-wing citizens into right-wing-motivated acts of violence. The last time things came together like this was back in 1993, after the Waco and Ruby Ridge debacles, combined with the passage of NAFTA and the Brady Bill, detonated into a militia movement that was wildly active, and exceedingly violent, throughout the entirety of President Bill Clinton’s two terms.

    Dozens of militia-related incidents, including the Oklahoma City bombing, took place during those years. In 2001, however, these incidents stopped almost completely, and for the entirety of George W. Bush’s two terms as president, hardly a peep was heard from the militia movement that had been so robustly vigorous during the administration of Bush’s predecessor.

    A Democratic president takes office in 1993 and the militia movement explodes, egged on by a whole host of right-wing media voices.

    A Republican president takes office in 2001 and the militia movement, along with those media voices who sponsored it, all but disappear from the American political landscape.

    A Democratic president takes office in 2009, and once again, right-wing media voices begin their clarion call for armed revolution, and once again, a portion of their listeners erupt into violence.

    ”In Politics,” President Franklin Roosevelt once said, “nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.”

    Indeed.

»

These pictures were taken of a statue of Jesus weeping outside of the Oklahoma City Memorial, erected in honor of the Oklahoma City bombing that happened in 1995. I was recently in OKC for my cousin’s wedding and during the day we decided to go see the memorial. This statue is supposed to recall Jesus weeping for his vision of the destroyed Jerusalem.

For more Around the World Pics, click HERE.

There‘s also circumstantial evidence, not proven by any means, but nonetheless some pretty compelling circumstantial evidence of Saddam Hussein‘s Iraq being involved with the people who perpetrated both the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center and even the Oklahoma City bombing.

Gaffney interview on Hardball

There is this theory in the social sciences that I have been quite taken with for a while.  It is called ambiguous loss theory.  The gist of it is that a loss with ambiguity is the most difficult kind because you don’t know how to find closure (click here for more info from the ambiguous loss guru).  I first came across it when I was doing some research on young couples dealing with chronic illness, but this theory has been applied to families of  POWs and those missing in action, families experiencing Alzheimer’s, and even those dealing with incarceration of a loved one.  But Pauline Boss, the aforementioned a. l. guru, believes that we all experience ambiguous loss, maybe even on a fairly consistent basis.

Life has got me thinking about this even more lately and tying it to another part of my life and research: history and memory (I was a history major as an undergrad).  I was quite fascinated by the concept of memorials and how and why society chooses to memorialize certain events in certain ways.  I spent a summer traveling the United States interviewing people at various memorials (Oklahoma City bombing, Robert Gould Shaw in Boston, Vietnam Veterans Memorial in D.C., etc.).  One of the patterns that seemed clear is that memorials, whether a national one or a grave marker, give us a concrete place to go and feel  and contemplate the sorrow…and then if we’re lucky, leave some of that pain there so we can move forward with life.  This is a luxury that ambiguous loss does not afford.  How do you mourn an Alzheimer’s patient when they are still there with you…but not?

I’ve been thinking about that second family member interview I wrote about here and how that’s exactly what she was dealing with…an ambiguous loss in which she could see no resolution.  She can’t be with him (only partly because he’s in jail), but she can’t say goodbye to him.  I realized that in a way our interview became that sacred space, that transitory memorializing space  where she could grieve for what she had lost and hopefully, leave some of it there to move forward with life.

I haven’t really talked about my faith or religion on this blog before, mainly because when I think about the issues I am trying to address in my thesis, I need to think scientifically and empirically.  But lately, I don’t feel at all like thinking scientifically.  Weightier matters deserve weighter thoughts than statistics can yield.  And so my thoughts have turned to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and this great hope that they provide: there is no ambiguous loss in God’s eyes.  They have seen and felt and understand intimately what our losses mean for us, even when our finite mortal minds cannot fully articulate or resolve them.  There is unending hope in that, for me, for the people I interviewed this summer, and indeed, for every person that has ever lived, cried, felt, hurt.

Joseph Smith (first prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) once said, “All your losses will be made up to you in the resurrection, provided you continue faithful. By the vision of the Almighty I have seen it.”  I haven’t seen this, but I have felt it.  I cling to it.

What is an incompetence theorist?  Incompetence theorists are those who blame all events on incompetence.  These wackos are running around everywhere.  They have infiltrated all levels of media and have brainwashed the public with their madness.   In the deranged mind of the incompetence theorists, the world is ran by bumbling idiots who are not capable of tying their shoes.  This is a dangerous idea that leads to apathy amongst the masses.  It is makes it much easier to swallow anything they feed us with the understanding it arises out of incompetence and chaos. 

These individuals should be treated with disdain, as they are very dangerous.  A good test to determine if someone is an incompetence theorist is ask them if Dick Cheney or Henry Paulson are idiots, if they say yes, you know that you have a live one.  Proceed with caution.

I’m putting up another of my terrorism articles as a companion piece to Homegrown Terror

 This one from. . .

Toxic Terror.

In it there’s a section on the Aryan Republican Army, aka the Midwest Bank Bandits. At the time “Toxic Terror” was published, the details regarding the ARA’s relationship with Tim McVeigh had not been  sufficiently established. Since then we’ve learned more about McVeigh’s link to the ARA–yet not enough to confirm that members of the ARA had an active role in the bombing of the federal  building in Oklahoma City.

But we will save all that tsuris for another day.

May 27th

• 1813- In Canada, American forces capture Fort George as a part of the War of 1812.
• 1883- Alexander III is crowned Tsar of Russia.
• 1896- The F4-strength St. Louis Tornado hits in St. Louis, Missouri and East Saint Louis, Illinois, killing at least 255 people and causing $2.9 billion in damages.
• 1907- A Bubonic plague outbreak begins in San Francisco, California.
• 1927- The Ford Motor Company ceases manufacturing the Ford Model T.
• 1967- The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy is christened by Jacqueline Kennedy and her daughter Caroline.
• 1995- Actor Christopher Reeve is paralyzed from the neck down after falling from his horse in a riding competition.
• 1997- The U.S. Supreme Court rules that Paula Jones can pursue her sexual harassment lawsuit against President Bill Clinton while he is in office.
• 1998- Michael Fortier is sentenced to 12 years in prison and fined $200,000 for failing to warn authorities about the Oklahoma City bombing.

Birthday Shoutouts

The Conservative Journal wishes a Happy Birthday to..

• Australian politician Pauline Hanson because she made her own political party, 55.
• ABC News anchor Cynthia McFadden, 53.
• Former Houston Astros player Jeff Bagwell, 41.
• Baseball champ and current free-agent Frank Thomas, 41.

Bolivian mothers: Happy Mother’s Day!

Leave your comments below or send an e-mail to theconservativejournal@gmail.com.  Don’t forget to bookmark The Conservative Journal and sign up for the RSS Feed and the daily e-mail newsletter.

Thanks for participating!

Rick

Yes!!  As the world gets smaller for those of us who must spend most of our time at home, the television becomes a very powerful presence in our lives.

The television has always been an important part of Mary Ann’s day.  Most days it is turned on when she gets up, and the one in the bedroom is still on when she goes to sleep.  An odd little piece of Mary Ann’s history seems to me to play into the role television has for Mary Ann.  Her mother turned the radio on in the morning when she got up, and it stayed on all day. It was company for her.

One of the things that scared me most about the prospect of retiring for full time Caregiving was the prospect of never being able to get away from the television.  We live in a town home with 1150 square feet on the main floor.  There is nowhere to hide.  Even when I go to the front room that serves as my home office and close the door, I have to turn on the monitor so that I can hear her if she needs my help.  The sound of the television follows me everywhere.

The problem is complicated by the fact that I am easily distracted.  I can’t read or do anything taking much mental effort while the dialog of a television program is audible.  Gratefully, I am able to focus on writing a blog post that is meaningful to me while the volume on the monitor is fairly low.  Unfortunately, the result of the low volume is that sometimes it is the thump of her falling in the bedroom that gets my attention and sends me running to help.

One of my most hated jobs has emerged as Mary Ann’s dexterity has diminished.  We are on our fourth or fifth remote control trying to find one that Mary Ann can still manage. I am now called on (I usually offer) to use the remote for her to try to find something she will settle on.  Without fail, we end up in what I call commercial hell.  There are commercials on every channel, lasting an eternity, one after another as we try to discover what the program is, let alone if it is something she wants to watch.  After making it through all fifty (or whatever the number is) channels, often there is nothing that has caught her fancy, so we start over.

How is the television Friend?  For someone who can no longer do any of the things that brought her joy, the television is a profound blessing.  Mary Ann can no longer quilt, or write notes to people, or read books or do wash or cook or clean or go to a job outside the home, or go outdoors and mess with the flowers or make herself a sandwich.  The television provides stimulation as she watches programs that interest her.

A benefit for me is that when she is engaged in a television program she is enjoying, I have time to do something else with less vulnerability to interruption.  I can step to the front room and sit at the computer.  I can make a phone call.  I can walk outside the house for a moment.

Let me make an admission that is embarrassing to a guy who grew up in the time when “a man’s home was his castle.”  Mary Ann runs the remote.  She always has.  In our house, I knew it, the kids knew it, the grandchildren now know it, Mary Ann is the boss of the television.  I suspect that admission will void any gift cards to Home Depot, Lowe’s, or Ace Hardware (except to buy flowers).  (I still refuse to enter a fabric store unless it is an emergency.)

The result of what I have just shared is that not only is the television on all day, but the programs on it are of Mary Ann’s choosing.  It is no wonder that whenever there is a volunteer at the house, I tend to seek quiet, secluded spots to look for birds and other wildlife, or just soak in the scenery.

How is the television Foe?  While it is a blessing to her in an important way, it is a curse at the same time.  As I have already said, it is oppressive to me that to have no little respite from it.  I could probably recite the dialog on most of the Doctor House episodes, the episodes of NCIS and most of the Law and Order series.  I have come to loathe the Saturday Spaghetti Westerns.

My understanding is that there is evidence that what is taken in, especially just before going to bed can have impact on a person’s feelings and general world view. I do not know that to be so.  I may have misunderstood or confused what has been said about that.  I do know that watching the horrible things people can do to one another portrayed in graphic detail in words and visuals is depressing to me.

There are some in the online group of spouses of those suffering from Lewy Body Dementia who have talked about the impact of television.  Some have said that their spouses become agitated with certain programs.  One mentioned that sitcoms seemed to be less troublesome for her Loved One.

What streams before the eyes on a constant basis has to have some effect on how a person feels, how he/she views the world.  When I was serving a the Pastor of a congregation in Oklahoma City, a very active, long term member of the congregation was killed in the bombing of the Murrah building there.  Her name was Lee.  As we gathered with her husband, Roy, at their house, waiting for news of her fate, I remember the role of the television.  We all had our eyes glued to it, we hung on every word the reporters and announcers spoke.

The most freeing piece of information came to Roy through a phone call from the HUD representative.  Lee worked in the HUD office.  The information was the assurance that any news of Lee’s fate would come first via phone to Roy, before it would be announced on television.  Roy and those gathered with him no longer had to remain glued to the television.

It didn’t take me long in that situation to realize that the television reporting hour by hour, day by day, could create a terrifying view of reality in the minds of those who were homebound, for whom the television was a constant companion.  I asked folks in the congregation to phone homebound friends and neighbors to reassure them.

The solution seemed to me to be getting the homebound out of the house, even if it was just to stand outside and look around.  Then they could see with their very own eyes that reality had not been shattered completely.  The houses around them were still there.  The sidewalks and streets, the trees and flowers and birds and squirrels were still as they had been.

For the most part what is seen on television is not real.  Reality television programs have been set up for their entertainment value — they are not real.  Even the news is a gathering of sensational stories framed in ways that are as dramatic as possible to keep viewers coming back to that station.  The antidote to what is not real is what is real.

It is important to get away from the television and find a way to interact with live people.   The people on television are acting, pretending, entertaining.  The troubled economy is real, the swine flu is real, but the world has not crumbled into useless rubble.  Interacting with real people allows the possibility of making good decisions about doing what you can actually do to help protect your savings or increase the chances of your avoiding catching the flu.

Used appropriately, television can be a helpful tool in caring for someone whose life has been drastically altered by a debilitating disease.  It is a tool like a knife.  It is very useful, but also dangerous.  As a window through which reality is experienced, it can increase the fears of someone who is already afraid of what is coming due to their disease.  It needs not to be the only window.

For some whose Loved Ones are no longer able to get out at all, or are overstimulated by going out in public, finding music to listen to, television programs that lift their spirits, reading to them, singing to them or with them, reminiscing about times gone by with them (or to them if they are no longer verbal), inviting an old friend over, offer some options that might work with them.

Yes, the television is friend and foe.  It is not a healthy substitute for reality, real people, real relationships.  It is a tool that needs to be used carefully.

Now I need to go and find out if Tony and Agent David have traced down the information Gibbs needs to solve the murders.  (I already know, I have seen it at least twelve times!)

P.S. In case you are wondering what a fabric store emergency might be, it is this: you take your suit coat to a sewing shop to have a button sewn on only to be sent to the fabric store to find replacements that match, since you lost the button that came off.  It was a terrifying experience!  It is a wonder that I lived to tell about it!

If you want to write a comment about this or any of the posts on this blog, look to the column on the right side of this page, titled “Recent Posts,”  click on the name of a post and you will find a box at the end of that article in which you can write a comment.  Clicking on the title of the post you are reading will accomplish the same thing.  Comments are appreciated.

I cannot believe it. It was 10 years ago on this very day. Columbine High School was shot up by Eric Harris an Dylan Klebold. It resulted in 13 deaths. I was in high school when this horrible bloodbath happened. It sure felt like yesterday. God, time flies fast. Where were you when Columbine unfolded in 1999?

I thought to myself that the Columbine massacre was in retaliation against the trial of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols for their involvement in the Oklahoma City Bombing and the Branch Davidian Fire, which happened two years before the bombing. Both are related because the Oklahoma City Bombing happened in retaliation against Waco. Also, Harris and Klebold planned the attack on the day of the Branch Davidian Fire and Oklahoma City Bombing. Had the bombs went off in the school on April 19th or April 20th, people would probably assume it would be somehow related to the Branch Davidian Fire and Oklahoma City Bombing. The Columbine Massacre was suppose to be a bombing that would of claimed hundreds of lives and it would of been viewed differently. Also, Ted Kaczynski, was caught as the Unabomber and ended up in prison. Ramzi Yousef and Sheikh Omar Abdul were sentenced to life in prison around the time McVeigh, Nichols, and Kaczynski were convicted and sentenced for their terroristic deeds. Yousef and Omar bombed the World Trade Center in 1993 in attempts of destroying it, but they failed. Sadly, the World Trade Center would be destroyed in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack after two airplanes attacked the towers. All of them were sent off to ADX Florence Supermax Prison for life, about an hour from Columbine High School.

That could really have pissed off Harris and Klebold and somehow they could relate to them. In many ways, Harris and Klebold lived a life similar to a terrorist and died like one. Harris and Klebold said in their diary that it was a copycat of the Oklahoma City Bombing, in which there is a copycat effect. It could be simple as a copycat effect or something worse which would be retaliation towards the federal government, which was the reason the 1995 bombing happened.

Quite a coincidence that on this very date two senseless and related tragic acts took place, and it’s interesting how differently history looks back on them.

• 1993: The Waco Siege took place at the Branch Davidian Complex after a 51 day stand-off. The question of “who fired first” is still hotly debated, and I think that image of Janet Reno staring over her glasses will be singed into my brain forever.
• Exactly two years later in 1995 was the Oklahoma City Bombing…a shocking act of terrorism committed by an American whose motive was largely tied to the government attacks at Waco and Ruby Ridge. (If you also lost someone in the Oklahoma City Bombing, you’re probably aware of the National Memorial, which was dedicated on this day in 2000, five years after the bombing. Peace.)

It’s frightening to think how these events took place during a period of time when America was enjoying prosperity. Makes you wonder what to expect now…the global economy is in a tumble, a nutjob in North Korea is flaunting nukes, and pirates in rowboats somehow blatantly challenge the world’s superpowers on a daily basis by capturing vessels in the most important shipping lane in our oil-dependent world. Are we all going crazy?

But somehow we get through tough times. I do it with humor and music. It’s the only way I can stay sane in the face of madness. Hopefully you have your release as well.

And speaking of madness, something good happened on April 19th. It was on this date in 1987 when we first saw The Simpsons as a feature on the Tracey Ullman Show. Twenty-two years later they are still rocking our world as the longest running sitcom and longest running animated program in television history. And after this year, they will break the tie with Gunsmoke as the longest running prime time television series in history. Cowabunga, man!

Here’s some great Simpsons trivia.

Homer: Got any of that beer that has candy floating in it? You know, Skittlebrau?
Apu: Such a beer does not exist, sir. I think you must have dreamed it.
Homer: Oh. Well, then just give me a six-pack and a couple of bags of Skittles

I’ve been watching the hyperventilation in conervative media outlets over the leaked Department of Homeland Security report on right-wing extremist groups.  You can read it here and I recommend you do so without the white noise of any media filter.

I’d like to remind everyone what the business end of extremism, motivating force be damned, looks like.

Sunday is the fourteenth anniversary of the worst episode of domestic terrorism in the history of the United States of America. I would hope that thinking people would remember what happened on 19 April 1995 and why a disillusioned young American-born Gulf War veteran and his cohorts could perpetuate a crime of murder of such epic proportions.

Bailey Almon would have been fifteen years old by now and who knows where her life could have gone.